NEWS & DOCUMENTS

International appeal by the International Workers Unity-Fourth International (IWU-FI)

The rise of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States is a serious threat to the oppressed and exploited peoples of the world. Trump is the head of world imperialism and the representative of a sector of imperialism that intends to launch a new counter-offensive against the workers and peoples, imposing reactionary labor reforms, especially on young people, worsening the depredation of nature, against the most basic rights of women, of oppressed people, of poor migrants, with the only goal of preserving the capitalist-imperialist system, and the profits of multinationals and big business.

One hundred years have gone by and a similar victory has not been repeated. What is the cause? Is the struggle for workers' and popular power no longer valid? Is it utopian to fight for workers' governments and socialism? The problem is not the lack of revolutions or struggles. But the subsistence of the reformist apparatuses and the non-overcoming of the crisis of revolutionary leadership.

By El SocialistaOn behalf of the IWU-FI, Izquierda Socialista (Socialist Left) convened on Saturday 8 July an internationalist rally in Buenos Aires to honour the historic revolutionary victory of October 1917 and the closing of the Sixth Congress of the international organisation.

Between July 6 and 9, the Sixth Congress of the International Workers Unity – Fourth International was held in Buenos Aires. A pole of reorganisation of the revolutionaries continues to grow on the basis of the building of parties fighting for a socialist outcome.

Without popular support and with growing divisions within chavismo, Maduro's government has relied on the military for his violent attacks on the large wave of popular demonstrations that began on April 4. Two weeks of repression have resulted in nine dead and hundreds detained and wounded. But the demonstrations have not ceased to grow and on April 19 hundreds of thousands, in rejection of Maduro's shift towards a dictatorship, took to the streets in all of the major cities. On the night of April 20 there was a generalized eruption in El Valle, a working-class neighbourhood in southern Caracas. Amid the riots and looting, eight people died electrocuted while trying to take food from a bakery.

About 50 US cruise missiles were launched on military installations of the Syrian regime of al-Assad by order of Donald Trump. They argue that it was in retaliation for the chemical attack perpetrated by Bashar al-Assad days before.

There has been a new criminal and genocidal action of dictator Bashar with the support of the Russian air force of Putin. A bombing with a chemical gas has killed 72 people and left dozens injured on Tuesday, 4 April, in the town of Jan Seijun, north-western province of Idlib (Syria). "There are about 560 people affected, but the staff is still in shock, so I estimate that this will not be the final figure", explains Dr Mohamed Katoub, coordinator in Turkey of the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS).

Driven by President Tayyip Erdogan a referendum has been called for 16 April to reform the constitution. With the proposed presidentialist reform, the prime minister disappears and the president of the republic concentrates the executive power. The president can also take part in the election of the judiciary. The legislative elections will happen every five years (now they are every four), matching the presidential elections. The number of deputies will increase to 600 (50 more than the current ones). In short, Erdogan attempts to concentrate full powers to perpetuate himself.

In more than 40 countries, thousands of women and organizations are preparing the world first women's strike for March 8th, the International Women's Day, which represents a great opportunity to strengthen and unify the struggles to conquer women's rights.

A few weeks ago, in the US, thousands of women took to the streets to face the misogynist, racist and capitalist politics that embodies the new government of Donald Trump. This movement joins with the great demonstrations that took place in the world in recent years: #NotOneLess of Argentina against femicides; demonstrations in Turkey against a bill that reduced penalties on violence against women. Turkish women managed to have the project withdrawn. There were demonstrations in Mexico demanding #WeWantUsAlive. There were demonstrations in Brazil and India against rape. In Chile, women were claiming for the right to legal abortion. The women's strike in France for equal work, equal pay; The protests of women in Russia; the demonstrations in the Spanish State against violence on women, as in Italy and Poland to maintain the right to legal abortion.

After years of heroic resistance, enduring the criminal bombings of the genocidal al-Assad and Putin, the glorious Aleppo falls. At the close of this edition, an agreement was announced that would allow the evacuation of rebel fighters from the last pockets of resistance. With no supplies or ammunition there was no alternative. Under the agreement, they could leave with their light weapons to the province of Idlib under rebel control, after the civilian population and the infirm were withdrawn. Of course, we cannot be sure that al-Assad and Putin will respect the agreement; particularly with the growth of reported cases about the atrocities and killings being carried out by the pro-Assad Iraqi and Lebanese "militias" executing civilians allegedly collaborating with the rebels.